


crybaby hugs rejected k-pop star (2018, colorized)

by andthemumblingintensifies



Category: Devilman (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Best Friends, Canon Compliant, Cute, Denial of Feelings, Devilman Crybaby Spoilers, Everyone Needs A Hug, Feelings, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Fudo Akira Is A Crybaby, Good for them, Hugs, M/M, Swimming Pools, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, also a bit of choking, but if you could handle dmcb youll be fine, but like only if you squint really hard, especially ryo, lil bit of blood mention, oh um right back to tags, okay here we go tag time, satan is here too bitches, sexy ass mofo, there should be a tag for "the pool scene (dmcb)" but there isn't so, these bitches gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:34:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29706210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthemumblingintensifies/pseuds/andthemumblingintensifies
Summary: Every action that Ryo had ever taken was a part of a greater plan. Each step forward was thought out to agonizing detail. It was simply his way. Cold. Unfeeling. It was interpreted as cruelty, but he never saw it that way. There simply was no need for feelings when they would only get in the way, and there was no reason to do anything before you knew what would happen. Everything formulaic, everything precise.Except for Akira.(yeauh uh they're in love)(also ryo aint actually a k-pop star i just think he looks like one in dmcb)(also also my girlfriend helped with the title)
Relationships: Asuka Ryo | Satan/Fudo Akira
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	crybaby hugs rejected k-pop star (2018, colorized)

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy!

Ryo had only ever been hugged by Akira. 

He was the only human being in the world that ever dared to attempt it, and Ryo didn’t mind. He wasn’t a fan of those sappy emotions, of affections or displaying them. It never made sense to him. Humans may do as they please, but Ryo? He was very well without it, and very glad that most humans naturally avoided him. Made life much easier. 

It had first happened when they were both very young; when he was too young to put words to the feeling that rushed him at first contact. It was brief, but it was... _something_. Ryo had never felt anything. This was something. Ryo’s memories were a barren waste of science and facts and studies, but this burned through. Akira held him fast and burnt through him with a fire that shouldn’t have been possible. 

They hugged often. Akira had always been so soft and vulnerable in his manner, something that Ryo could never understand. He saw no benefit, evolutionary or otherwise, to allow himself to feel or, furthermore, express that emotion. Akira was his perfect opposite. Each one of his emotions always played bare on the features of his face. By the clench of his jaw, Ryo could see when he was upset. He read each fear in the crease of Akira’s youthful brow, happiness in the broad smile of his baby-faced cheeks. He’d always been able to read Akira better than any textbook, and even though the feelings themselves never made much sense to him, _Akira_ always did. Akira was his best friend, and he knew Akira best of all things.

He knew that Akira would follow him no matter what. It was right there in his eyes, in the always-willingness to follow him, to care for him, to hold him. Silently and secretly, Ryo basked in it. He inhaled warmth and love in gasps with every embrace, clinging to the last shreds of humanity- perhaps the only shred of humanity- that he’d ever had. He sought safety in Akira’s arms. 

_____

They had been childhood friends. They had held and embraced with all the innocence of childhood, blissfully uncomplicated with other emotions. But by the time Ryo had left the continent, he had felt the shift. He had felt the way that Akira suddenly looked at him with _more_ , the way that everything felt more important. Bigger, almost, when it was between the two of them. 

“How long are you going away?” Akira asked. 

Ryo shrugged. “Don’t know. As long as it takes. Research like this can require several years sometimes, and then with all of the additional work it’ll take afterward…” 

Akira’s lips twitched, trembled, pursed. Ryo wasn’t going to lie to him. There was no point in being dishonest, and yet….

“I’ll be sure to come by and see you when I get back. You’ll be first to know.” 

With all the time they’d known each other, he should have been used to seeing Akira cry before. It was nothing new, but this felt different. It felt. _Ryo_ felt, and it wasn’t simply a reaction to Akira’s emotion. It was something bubbling up within him, something suddenly painful and longing, and he half-stepped towards the boarding dock with considerably less enthusiasm than he had approached it. Akira wiped at his eyes and sniffled loudly. He was going to draw the attention of the entire gate. If for no other reason than to quiet him, Ryo opened his arms wide, unburdened by the carry-on bag on his shoulder, and pulled Akira into his chest. The way Akira clutched for purchase at the back of his white jacket, the shaking of those small shoulders as he sobbed...the moment seared itself into the back of Ryo’s eyes, tingling in the ridges of his hippocampus. Something had just happened. 

He didn’t have the words or the understanding to voice the feeling at the age of thirteen, but it had been there nonetheless. He had carried it around with him like a shameful badge, Akira’s name branded across his chest, the one being that held the power to make him _feel_ something, to stir warmth or cold or horror into his chest without even trying. It was unnecessary, it was human. Try as he might, Ryo couldn’t shed the skin of this shortcoming; he couldn’t leave the obsession (for what else could it be?) behind him. In the dark, quiet moments of the night, Akira was there, his image working its way into Ryo’s brain, forcing him to deal with the magnitude of the feeling. It wasn’t right. It didn’t make sense. Why didn’t anything about this make sense? 

Ryo tried to forget the feeling of Akira nestled decisively in his arms. He tried to push it aside and focus on studying. On research. On the important things in life (i.e. nothing but power, money, and knowledge). From time to time, his ear would mistake “Fikira” for “Akira”, and he was hollowed. 

_____

When they met on the boardwalk, it surprised Ryo to find that Akira was the same as ever. Just like he was before: small and innocent with a heart far more powerful than his body, the light in his dark eyes threatening the sun. Akira had seen him and rejoiced, and Ryo’s gut twisted. He was home again, and he ached with the sudden need to pull his friend close to himself, to hold him for as long as time would oblige. Ryo called out to him, arms unfolding of their own accord, inviting Akira into the empty space that he had left all those years ago. 

“Ryo-chan!” Akira cried and thrust himself into the waiting hug. 

Salvation. 

He held him fast, spinning him around with the momentum of his elation. He wouldn’t- He absolutely could _not_ let him go, could not run the risk of being separated so long again. 

_That laugh. That everything._

Akira. 

_____

Ryo broke the surface of the water, gasping for breath and treading stupidly with his broken leg. He spat out chlorinated water, equal parts irritated and enamored by the way Akira smiled as he, too, bobbed up for air. This was terrible, he’d have to shower and change and deal with that damned boot. The last thing he needed was any further complications with _that_ injury, he’d just barely been able to start walking without the crutches again…

“Satisfied?” Ryo asked.

“C’mon, Ryo,” Akira teased, swimming over to him. Ryo held himself up by one arm on the concrete. “Act like a teenager for once. Loosen up!”

“I don’t see the point,” Ryo insisted, making an effort to sound as unaffected and uninterested as possible. Ryo felt a pull from his stomach, pushed it aside. “Not right now, at least.” 

Akira sighed, defeated, and Ryo allowed himself a single moment of triumph. It wouldn’t be much longer now. A few months maybe, and then a new world. One for just the two of them. Akira would come along. He’d have to. He was the only one that could coax this out of Ryo, this feeling, this emotion. _I need you, Akira. It’s always been you._

“Ryo?” 

The mention of his name drew his gaze lazily back up to Akira’s dark eyes, awash with hope. Akira always dared to hope, even when hope was impossible.

Akira shrugged. “Fine then, let’s just get out if you’re going to be such a party pooper.” 

“Wuh...Akira!” Ryo gasped suddenly, as Akira’s certain hands wrapped firmly around his small waist, under the water. “What are you doing?” His hands instinctively slapped onto Akira’s shoulders, gripping along the broad muscle. 

“What? No way I’m going to let you scramble out of here by yourself.” His fingers prodded Ryo’s sides even further, and he was lifted from the pool then set down on the concrete, his feet still dangling into the clear blue water. 

Ryo looked down into Akira’s eyes, drank in the way the green shone through with the sunlight, and then dropped down to his lips, broken apart with a wide exhilarated smile. He might as well have been punched in the gut, the way the breath was suddenly stolen from his body. It was illogical, but that was what happened when he was with Akira. 

Every action that Ryo had ever taken was a part of a greater plan. He did nothing unnecessarily if he could help it, and he never took action before knowing all of the possible outcomes. Each step forward was thought out to agonizing detail. It was simply his way. Cold. Unfeeling. It was interpreted as cruelty, but he never saw it that way. There was no need for feelings when they would only get in the way, and there was no reason to do anything before you knew what would happen. Everything formulaic, everything precise. 

Except for Akira. When it came to Akira, Ryo’s strategies, his calculations, his careful personality were all too often discarded. It may have been the influence of Akira’s too-humanness, or it may have been something else yet. It might have been Ryo himself. When it was about Akira, he acted on the barest impulse, he cared little for anything else. 

Akira’s hands. They were still on Ryo’s waist. He felt the length of every finger, every small twitch from each digit. His own hands, white and small, laid on top of Akira’s shoulders. He slipped them down, grabbing the fabric of the black shirt between his fingers. It clung to Akira’s body, but Ryo found a grasp anyway. 

Neither of them spoke. Akira’s eyes looked down, then back up, meeting Ryo’s with an anticipatory flick. The world spun around, and his hands, fisted in Akira’s shirt, anchored him.

“So are you gonna kiss me, or am I reading this wrong?” Akira asked, and it was simple as that. 

Ryo was stiff at first, bending over like a crescent moon to meet the waiting mouth, inching closer to him. It was chaste, quick, and despite the battering of Ryo’s heart against his ribs, he pulled away almost as quickly as he’d kissed him. 

Akira’s eyes fluttered open slowly, then screwed up with determination as he released Ryo’s waist and pushed himself out of the pool. Ryo scuffled backwards as Akira lifted himself onto the concrete, sitting on his calves in front of him. 

He scrambled for words to fill the awkward silence, leaning back on his hands, away from Akira and away from his lips. _Those lips that he just kissed._ “That’s an, uh, unexpected side effect. Has it been like this since you were possessed?” 

Akira shook his head. Ryo gulped. “So it’s brand new? Or has it been like this since...before?” 

Akira nodded. “Before.” 

“Hm,” Ryo nodded, and swallowed, and glanced away, avoiding his eyes. “Hm. Interesting.” 

And then he kissed him again, grabbing Akira’s face, leaning into his loose embrace, hardly knowing what he himself was doing. It was longer this time, their mouths clashing as though this were a fight and not the best moment of Ryo’s entire life. Hands, hair, clothes, all sopping wet, all feeling each other, feeling alive as if he had just been born. 

One of Akira’s hands settled on Ryo’s clavicle, then began squeezing his throat. Even as his head grew light and his vision on the inside of his eyelids spotted for want of air, he chased the feeling of the kiss. He needed it. He needed this. It wasn’t until sharp fangs dug into his bottom lip that adrenaline (he wouldn’t dare admit that it was panic) flooded his veins and wrenched him free. 

His blood drip, drip, dripped down Akira’s chin, turning a pale pinkish-orange in the mix of water and saliva that it met there. Shaking, but calm, he pried the fingers off of his throat and set the hand somewhere around his hip. When he noticed Akira’s red irises, he wiped away the blood and moved away, rising to his feet.

“Well, that’s enough for now, then.” 

The other’s face fell visibly, causing something to tighten in Ryo’s chest. He wanted to drop down to his knees, to lay Akira down on the ground under him, to pick up where they left off, but that was far too dangerous. He resigned himself and only blinked slowly, giving Akira a clear “you-know-what-you-did” look. 

Akira looked down at the concrete, at a drop of crimson. “Okay, yeah, I was getting carried away. It’s just-” he stood, eyes pleading with Ryo, “It’s this damn demon that keeps pushing me to...do things I shouldn’t.” 

Ryo interpreted this as an apology. “I figured as much. I think we- you need a moment to calm down. So you don’t trigger a transformation.” 

Akira pressed a hand to his forehead, covering his eyes. “Right. I know. That was just...Ryo, I-” His eyes filled with tears, and Ryo cut him off before he started crying. 

“You didn’t hurt me, Akira,” Ryo reassured him, reaching his hand out for the other to hold. 

“Still,” his voice caught in his throat as he eyed Ryo’s swollen bottom lip, “I could have.” 

Ryo turned his head so he wouldn’t see the injury. “C’mon, let’s go back inside. You can shower in the spare bathroom, and then help me out with this boot.”

______

The room echoed with a heavy silence as they settled in on the couch next to each other. They were freshly showered, and the walking boot was dry, and they had barely spoken three words to each other since they’d come inside. For all his prowess with intellect, Ryo couldn’t figure out where he should start. Anything he had to say or anything that he _could_ say was far too close to the truth. It was a truth that he wasn’t quite ready to relinquish yet. It threatened the basis of everything that he ever proclaimed to know. 

There was no such thing as love, he reminded himself, and there was no use in complicating a perfectly good friendship with _words._ They had this. Couldn’t this be enough?

The words on the laptop screen blurred, dancing in and out of his vision, turning into meaningless, fractured pixels of red and blue light. Akira smelled...soft. Clean. There was a lightness to it, like the breeze in the empty beaches of South America. Ryo had never been able to sense anything as acutely as this, but he simply couldn’t ignore it. It was familiar. 

_Me. Akira smells like me._

“Did you use my shampoo?” He asked, desperate to solve the mystery and _stop thinking about this please stop thinking about this._

Akira looked up from his smartphone, still acquainting himself with how to use it. “Huh?” 

Frustrated for reasons that he couldn’t voice, Ryo repeated himself. “You smell like my shampoo. I was just wondering if you used it.” 

He lowered his arm. “Oh, um, yeah. It was there and, well, I figured I’d get an earful from you if I didn’t wash the chlorine out.” 

What had he expected? He tried to focus again, but Akira shifted closer, peering over Ryo’s shoulder, breath hot on his neck. “Something wrong?” 

“I have no idea how you manage to make sense of all that,” Akira remarked. There wasn’t anything he could say to that, not with Akira’s arm pressed against his own, not with his mouth so damn close. 

Right. Potential demon sightings had been popping up all over the continent, especially near them. Likely a result of Devilman; the word about him was probably starting to make news in demonic circles. There were a few hotspots in the neighboring regions that they could look into, maybe clean out some lower-level demons just to kill time…

Something soft bristled against his cheek, and then his neck, and then, finally, a pressure settled in on his left shoulder. A warm breath hit him, sending shivers down his spine as Akira sighed deeply. That alone was enough to process, so Ryo almost jumped when a heavy arm wrapped across the front of his waist and squeezed. Was this supposed to be a hug? This might be a hug. 

“I’m working, Akira.” 

Akira hummed, his low voice sending vibrations down Ryo’s entire left side. 

“You’re distracting me,” He continued, his eyes flickering between the screen and the top of Akira’s head, the white towel now lost to the couch. 

“Interesting,” Akira answered, in a tone that suggested he was, in fact, not at all interested. 

Ryo closed the laptop reluctantly and pushed it across the coffee table, out of his reach. “Fine. All I’ll say is that I made my...feelings...obvious to you in the pool earlier. We don’t need to talk about it, I don’t need to make any advances in the future if you don’t feel the same.” Too cold, he knew, but how was he supposed to talk about this? These were uncharted waters, and Ryo was steering without a sail at the moment. 

Akira jumped up, pushing Ryo away to an arm’s length. Ryo sat impassively, even though his lungs had constricted in response. “W-Never again? Ryo, you can’t just-” 

“I didn’t say that I don’t want to,” Ryo cut him off, then lowered his voice, “Only that if you...don’t reciprocate it, I won’t push the issue.” 

Akira blinked once. Twice. Ryo eyed him curiously. It was possible that this would be the moment that he had gone too far, and that Akira would deny him, apologize for misleading him, perhaps. Or-- and Ryo wasn’t sure if this was worse or better-- he’d admit that he held the same feelings, that he… thought of Ryo romantically. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” He asked, voice as innocent as ever. As before. Ryo’s hand moved of its own volition, reaching out to Akira, to his best and only friend, to the only thing that mattered on this planet. 

He forced it to fall. _I need you, Akira. Don’t do this._ He spent so long tiptoeing around, making sure that he was giving Akira the space that he needed, never forcing him to do anything in return but simply exist and trust him. If he were to find out now… if he were to say it now, what would happen? The balance would be tipped, it’d come crashing down, leaving Ryo alone and insignificant and pointless. 

It didn’t matter, it was too late. 

“I love you,” Akira said, plainly as if it had been there all along. As if Ryo had been an idiot to ever doubt it. 

It hit him square in the chest, stealing his breath, cracking his ribs again, and stabbing them through all of his vital organs. He’d done it. He said it. The part of Ryo that once wanted to be cynical vanished and his brain sputtered out. 

“You... you what?” 

“I love you,” Akira repeated, robbing Ryo of the chance to recollect himself. And then, to ensure the mass organ failure finished him off, he continued through a wet laugh, “Ryo, I love you.”

Ryo had only ever been hugged by Akira, because Akira was the only person that Ryo ever wanted to hug. He had stayed awake for long, lonely nights, imagining Akira’s arms wrapped solidly around him, settling him, reminding him why everything was worth it, why he was going to all this trouble. Over time, Ryo had grown to anticipate the embraces, to initiate them. Ever since they had hugged on the dock, Ryo had never dared to imagine that anything could ever feel as good as that. The adrenaline, the relief, the elation that he felt when Akira was finally in his arms again after so long...how could that be matched? 

Well, like this. 

With Ryo desperately throwing himself against Akira, against a body that was unprepared but not unwilling. It was matched by the way his arms felt so right around him, the way that he pulled Ryo into his lap to hold him more fully. It was matched by the haphazard way his heart pounded against Akira’s chest, and by the feeling of Akira’s hand teasing into his hair, against the shaved part of his scalp. It was matched by his chin tucked over Akira’s shoulder, so close that he could smell the scent of his own shampoo barely masking something muskier, heavier. It was matched in the way that Akira’s tears flowed freely onto Ryo’s shirt, his quiet sobs offset by loud, abrasive sniffles, blubbering in between, words that Ryo could barely make out. It wasn’t as good as the boardwalk, it was _better_ . _So much better_. 

Shaken to the core, all that Ryo could manage was to order, “Say it again.” 

Akira inhaled deeply before obeying. “I love you.” 

His muscles tensed, and he struggled to hold Akira tighter against him, caring little if it gave away just how ruined he was. _I’ve already given myself away; I’ve devoted my life to protecting you. Whatever parts of my heart that are worth having, they all belong to you._

“Keep saying it,” Ryo all but begged, in a tone as even as he could manage. He practically shook in Akira’s grasp, trying to pull him closer, closer.

“I love you.” 

Even though Ryo did not speak, he still felt as if he was making a confession, dark and terrible in its purity. A prayer, a sin, and a tearing apart of the Earth from its very core. More human than ever. 

“I love you.” 

Ryo squeezed his eyes shut, willing away the threat of tears, blond bangs falling into his face as he clutched Akira. He’d stay with him. He’d make him stay if he had to. 

“I love you.” 

He needed him. 

_____

Divinity is raining down upon what was once the Earth, wiping it clean, making it clear and open and free. Satan should have rejoiced. Instead, he cries. 

Akira’s dead weight lies still and heavy in his arms. The bright light of the heavens consumes the darkness, but Satan hardly notices, the white glare only barely touching the corners of his vision as his tears fall on Akira’s face. 

“Say it again, Akira,” he begs, frantic as the light begins to reach his body, dissolving him along with everything else. “Please, say it to me? Just one more time.” 

There is no response, he knew that there couldn’t be. This is his fault, isn’t it? He’d been the one to kill him, and he hadn’t even thought about it until after it happened. He pulls Akira closer to himself, up into his arms, squirming away from the growing light. 

He can’t die alone, not now, not after everything they’d gone through. Akira had to answer him. He _needed_ him, he needed him now more than ever, and Akira had always been there when he needed him. He’d come back. He’d answer. 

“I love you, Akira,” Satan whimpers into the darkness. The implosion of Time rips the sound of his final sob away from his throat before Creation itself collapses in on them, Satan and his heart at the epicenter.

_____

Ryo hears someone crying, over the sound of the waves crashing on the beach. It is someone young, by the sound of it, probably not much older than himself. The sky has taken on the clammy grey color of rotting flesh, signaling that a storm is about to come. Ryo should seek shelter, he knows, but he can’t ignore the crying. It worms its way into his ear and guides him across the rocky beach, to the base of a cliff. He follows it up.

As he approaches, he can make out the figure of a young boy, sitting on his knees in front of a box. His head is bent in despair, the sound of his cries still echoing out into the air, thick with the static electricity of an oncoming storm. 

Ryo knows better than to be curious about strangers, and he normally wouldn’t care to offer his help, but something is different this time. His heart beats in anticipation, yet he means the boy no harm. He’s reached him now, and he can see the boy gripping the hem of a black t-shirt, head shaking as he sobs, black hair falling into his face. He’s familiar, but Ryo knows he’s never seen him before. He wants to ask who he is, why he cares, but he can’t find the words. 

Ryo has never felt anything akin to empathy, has never wanted to help anyone, but he has the feeling that he should this time. Somehow, Ryo needs to. Ryo needs him.

  
_Akira_ , a voice in his head tells him. It sounds like his own.

**Author's Note:**

> that was unnecessarily emotionally taxing. annie weighs. have a great day/night, drink water, and stay safe!


End file.
